Covid Origin WHO

About Covid Origin WHO

The WHO China joint study on COVID origins conducted in January and February 2021 was criticized for limited access and scope. The joint team of international and Chinese experts spent about four weeks in Wuhan, including quarantine, and international members said they did not have access to raw data on early cases. The team rated introduction through an intermediate host as likely to very likely and a laboratory incident as extremely unlikely. Some scientists and governments criticised the assessment as premature. The WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus later stated that all hypotheses remained on the table. China rejected the WHO proposal for a second phase of the study that included laboratory audits. The Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins of Novel Pathogens SAGO was established in 2021 as an ongoing advisory group. In 2025 SAGO reported that the weight of available evidence pointed to zoonotic spillover but that information it had requested from China had not been provided, so other hypotheses could not be excluded. The investigation remains incomplete.